Alternate Allegiant Ending
by TipNaomi10
Summary: This is an alternative ending to Allegiant. This starts off with minimum alterations with Tobias chapters unchanged until Chapter 51, paragraph 101 when everything is altered. Chapter 50 is almost entirely changed as well. Changes start at Chapter 47 page 457 with very small changes that come in later on to save the life of Tris. Enjoy!


**Alternate Allegiant Ending**

*This fanfiction starts at chapter 47, page 457 and paragraph 42 of Allegiant. Most everything has been unchanged until Chapter 50 and then everything is re-written at paragraph 101 in chapter 51.*

The noise vibrates in my bones as the small bomb detonates, and the force of the blast throws me sideways, my gun sliding across the floor. Pieces of glass and metal spray through the air, falling to the floor where I lie, stunned. Even though I sealed off my ears with my hands, I still hear ringing when I take them away, and I feel unsteady on my feet as I pick up my gun from where it slid when the bomb detonated.

At the end of the hallway, the guards have caught up with me. They fire, and a bullet hits me in the fleshy part of my arm. I scream, clapping my hand over the wound, and my vision goes spotty at the edges as I throw myself around the corner again, half walking and half stumbling to the blasted-open doors.

Beyond them is a small vestibule with a set of sealed, lockless doors at the other end. Through the windows in those doors I see the Weapons Lab, the even rows of machinery and dark devices and serum vials lit from behind like they're on display. I hear a spraying sound and know that the death serum is floating through the air, but the guards are behind me, and I don't have enough time to put on the suit that will delay its effects.

I also know, just know, that I can survive this.

I step into the vestibule.

**Chapter 48: Tobias**

Factionless Headquarters- but this building will always be Erudite headquarters to me, no matter what happens- stands silent in the snow, with nothing but glowing windows to signal that there are people inside. I stop in front of the doors and make a disgruntled sound in my throat.

"What?" Peter says.

"I hate it here," I say.

He pushes his hair, soaked from the snow, out of his eyes. "So what are we going to do, break a window? Look for a back door?"

"I'm just going to walk in," I say. "I'm her son."

"You also betrayed her and left the city when she forbade anyone from doing that," he says, "and she sent people after you to stop you. People with guns."

"You can stay here if you want," I say.

"Where the serum goes, I go," he says. "But is you get shot at, I'm going to grab it and run."

"I don't expect anything more."

He is a strange sort of person.

I walk into the lobby, where someone reassembled the portrait of Jeanine Matthews, but they drew an X over each of her eyes in red paint and wrote "Faction scum" across the bottom.

Several people wearing factionless armbands advance on us with guns held high. Some of them I recognize from across the factionless warehouse campfires, or from the time I spent at Evelyn's side as a Dauntless leader. Others are complete strangers, reminding me that the factionless population is larger than any of us suspected.

I put my hands up. "I'm here to see Evelyn."

"Sure," one of them says. "Because we just let anyone in who wants to see her."

"I have a message from the people outside," I say. "One I'm sure she would like to hear."

"Tobias?" a factionless woman says. I recognize her, but not from a factionless warehouse- from the Abnegation sector. She was my neighbor. Grace is her name.

"Hello, Grace," I say. "I just want to talk to my mom."

She bites the inside of her cheek and considers me. Her grip on her pistol falters. "Well, we're still not supposed to let anyone in."

"For God's sake," Peter says. "Go tell her we're here and see what she says, then! We can wait."

Grace backs up into the crowd that gathered as we were talking, then lowers her gun and jogs down a nearby hallway.

We stand for what feels like a long time, until my shoulders ache from supporting my arms. Then Grace returns and beckons to us. I lower my hands as the others lower their guns, and walk into the foyer, passing through the center of the crowd like a piece of thread through the eye of a needle. She leads us into an elevator.

"What are you doing holding a gun, Grace?" I say. I've never known an Abnegation to pick up a weapon.

"No faction customs anymore," she says. "Now I get to defend myself. I get to have a sense of self-preservation."

"Good," I say, and I mean it. Abnegation was just as broken as the other factions, but its evils were less obvious, cloaked as they were in the guise of selflessness. But requiring a person to disappear, to fade into the background wherever they go, is no better than encouraging them to punch one another.

We go up to the floor where Jeanine's administrative office was- but that's not where Grace takes us. Instead she leads us to a large meeting room with tables, couches, and chairs arranged in strict squares. Huge windows along the back wall let in the moonlight. Evelyn sits at a table on the right, staring out the window.

"You can go, Grace," Evelyn says. "You have a message for me, Tobias?"

She doesn't look at me. Her thick hair is tied back in a knot, and she wears a gray shirt with a factionless armband over it. She looks exhausted.

"Mind waiting in the lobby?" I say to Peter, and to my surprise, he doesn't argue. He just walks out, closing the door behind him.

My mother and I are alone.

"The people outside have no messages for us," I say moving closer to her. "They wanted to take away the memories of everyone in this city. They believe there is no reasoning with us, no appealing to our better natures. They decided it would be easier to erase us than to speak with us."

"Maybe they're right," Evelyn says. Finally she turns to me, resting her cheekbone against her clasped hands. She has an empty circle tattooed on one of her fingers like a wedding band. "What is it you came here to do, then?"

I hesitate, my hand on the vial in my pocket. I look at her, and I can see the way time has worn through her like an old piece of cloth, the fibers exposed and fraying. And I can see the woman I knew as a child, too, the mouth that stretched into a smile, the eyes that sparkled with joy. But the longer I look at her, the more convinced I am that that happy woman never existed. That woman is just a pale version of my real mother, viewed through the self-centered eyes of a child.

I sit down across from her at the table and put the vial of memory serum between us.

"I came to make you drink this," I say.

She looks at the vial, and I think I see tears in her eyes, but it could just be the light.

"I thought it was the only way to prevent total destruction," I say. "I know that Marcus and Johanna and their people are going to attack, and I know that you will do whatever it takes to stop them, including using that death serum you possess to its best advantage." I tilt my head. "Am I wrong?"

"No," she says. "The factions are evil. They cannot be restored. I would sooner see us all destroyed."

Her hand squeezes the edge of the table, the knuckles pale.

"The reason the factions were evil is because there was no way out of them," I say. "They gave us the illusion of choice without actually giving us a choice. That's the same thing you're doing here, by abolishing them. You're saying, go make choices. But make sure they aren't factions or I'll grind you to bits!"

"If you thought that, why didn't you tell me?" she says, her voice louder and her eyes avoiding mine, avoiding me. "Tell me, instead of _betraying _me?"

"Because I'm afraid of you!" The words burst out, and I regret them but I'm also glad they're there, glad that before I ask her to give up her identity, I can at least be honest with her. "You…you remind me of _him_!"

"Don't you dare." She clenches her hands into fists and almost spits at me, "Don't you _dare_."

"I don't care if you don't want to hear it," I say coming to my feet. "He was a tyrant in our house and now you're a tyrant in this city, and you can't even see that it's the same!"

"So that's why you brought this," she says, and she wraps her hand around the vial, holding it up to look at it. "Because you think this is the only way to med things."

"I…" I am about to say that it's the easiest way, the best way, maybe the only way that I can trust her.

If I erase her memories, I can create for myself a new mother, but.

But she is more than my mother. She is a person in her own right, and she does not belong to me.

I do not get to choose what she becomes just because I can't deal with who she is.

"No," I say. "No, I came to give you a choice."

I feel suddenly terrified, my hands numb, my heart beating fast-

"I thought about going to see Marcus tonight, but I didn't." I swallow hard. "I came to see you instead because…because I think there's a hope of reconciliation between us. Not now, not soon, but someday. And with him there's no hope, there's no reconciliation possible."

She stares at me, her eyes fierce but welling up with tears.

"It's not fair for me to give you this choice," I say. "But I have to. You can lead the factionless, you can fight the Allegiant, but you'll have to do it without me, forever. Or you can let this crusade go, and…you'll have your son back.

It's a feeble offer and I know it, which is why I'm afraid-afraid that she will refuse to choose, that she will choose power over me, that she will call me a ridiculous child, which is what I am. I am a child. I am two feet tall and asking her how much she loves me.

Evelyn's eyes, dark as wet earth, search mine for a long time.

Then she reaches across the table and pulls me fiercely into her arms, which form a wire cage around me, surprisingly strong.

"Let them have the city and everything in it," she says into my hair.

I can't move, can't speak. She chose me. She chose me.

**Chapter 49: Tris**

The death serum smells like smoke and spice, and my lungs reject it with the first breath I take. I cough and splutter, and I am swallowed by darkness.

I crumple to my knees. My body feels like someone has replaced my blood with molasses, and my bones with lead. An invisible thread tugs me toward sleep, but I want to be awake. I imagine that wanting, that desire, burning in my chest like a flame.

The tread tugs me harder, and I stoke the flame with names. Tobias. Caleb. Christina. Cara. Zeke. Uriah.

But I can't bear up under the serum's weight. My body falls to the side, and my wounded arm presses to the cold ground. I am drifting…

_It would be nice to float away, _a voice in my head says. _To see where I will go_...

But the fire, the fire.

The desire to live.

I am not done yet, I am not.

I feel like I am digging through my own mind. It is difficult to remember why I came here and why I care about unburdening myself from this beautiful weight. But then my scratching hands find it, the memory of my mother's face, and the strange angles of her limbs on the pavement, and the blood seeping from my father's body.

_But they are dead,_ the voice says. _You could join them._

_ They died for _me, I answer. And now I have something to do, in return. I have to stop other people from losing everything. I have to save the city and the people my mother and father loved.

If I go to join my parents, I want to carry with me a good _reason_, not his- this senseless collapsing at the threshold.

The fire, the fire. It rages within, a campfire and then an inferno, and my body is its fuel. I feel it racing through me, eating away at the weight. There is nothing that can kill me now; I am powerful and invincible and eternal.

I feel the serum clinging to my skin like oil, but the darkness recedes. I slap a heavy hand over the floor and push myself up.

Bent at the waist, I shove my shoulder into the double doors, and they squeak across the floor as their seal breaks. I breathe clean air and stand up straighter. I am there, I am _there._

But I am not alone.

"Don't move," David says, raising his gun. "Hello, Tris."

**Chapter 50: Tris**

"How did you inoculate yourself against the death serum?" he asks me. He's still sitting in his wheelchair, but you don't need to be able to walk to fire a gun.

I blink at him, still dazed, and raise my gun so it's pointing directly at David.

"I didn't," I say.

"Don't be stupid," David says. "You can't survive the death serum without an inoculation, and I'm the only person in the compound who possesses that substance.

I just stare at him, not sure what to say. I didn't inoculate myself. The fact that I'm still standing upright is impossible. There's nothing more to add.

"I suppose it no longer matters," he says. "We're here now."

"What are you doing here?" I mumble. My lips feel awkwardly large, hard to talk around. I still feel that oily heaviness on my skin, like death is clinging to me even though I have defeated it.

I keep the hand holding the gun steady and pointing directly at David. I'm glad I retrieved it after the blast.

"I knew something was going on," David says. "You've been running around with genetically damaged people all week, Tris, did you think I wouldn't notice?" He shakes his head. "And then your friend Cara was caught trying to manipulate the lights, but she very wisely knocked herself out before she could tell us anything. So I came here, just in case. I'm sad to say I'm not surprised to see you."

"You came here alone?" I say. "Not very smart, are you?"

His bright eyes squint a little. "Well, you see, I have death serum resistance and a weapon, and you have no death serum resistance."

"I do, however, have a gun in my hand pointed right at you, don't I?" I say.

"You won't shoot me," he tells me.

"Are you so sure about that?" I respond.

He seems to consider that. "Well I could shoot you right now because I can't allow you to take the memory serum."

He thinks I'm here to steal the weapons that will reset the experiments, not deploy one of them. Of course he does.

I try to guard my expression, though I'm not sure it's still slack. I sweep my eyes across the room, searching for the device that will release the memory serum virus. I was there when Matthew described it to Caleb in painstaking detail earlier: a black box with a silver keypad, marked with a strip of blue tape with a model number written on it. It is one of the only items on the counter along the left wall, just a few feet away from me. But if I move, I'll lose my aim on David, and he'll kill me before I can shoot him.

I'll have to wait for the right moment to do it, and do it fast.

"I know what you did," I say. I start to back up, hoping that the accusation will distract him. "I know you designed the attack simulation. I know you're responsible for my parents' deaths- for my _mother's_ death. I know. "

"I am not responsible for her death!" David says, the words bursting from him, too loud and too sudden. "I _told_ her what was coming just before the attack began, so she had enough time to escort her loved ones to a safe house. If she had stayed put, she would have lived. But she was a foolish woman who didn't understand making sacrifices for the greater good, and it _killed_ her!"

I frown at him. There's something about his reaction- about the glassiness of his eyes- something that he mumbled when Nita shot him with the fear serum- something about _her._

"Did you lover her?" I say. "All those years she was sending you correspondence…the reason you never wanted her to stay there…the reason you told her you couldn't read her updates anymore, after she married my father…"

David sits still, like a statue, like a man of stone.

"I did," he says. "But that time is past."

That must be why he welcomed me into his circle of trust, why he gave me so many opportunities. Because I am a piece of her, wearing her hair and speaking with her voice. Because he has spent his life grasping at her and coming up with nothing.

I hear footsteps in the hallway outside. The soldiers are coming. Good- I need them to. I need them to be exposed to the airborne serum, to pass it on to the rest of the compound. I hope they wait until the air is clear of the death serum.

"My mother wasn't a fool," I say. "She just understood something you didn't. That it's not sacrifice if it's someone _else's _life you're giving away, it's just evil."

I back up another step and say, "She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person's genetics. That is should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That is should be done for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own. That's why I need to stop you from 'sacrificing' all those people and their memories. Why I need to rid the world of you once and for all."

I shake my head.

"I didn't come here to steal anything, David."

I twist and lunge toward the device. The gun goes off and pain races through my body. I don't even know where the bullet hit me.

I can still hear Caleb repeating the code for Matthew. With a quaking hand I type in the numbers on the keypad.

I fire twice at David.

I hear a scream of pain and the gun that he was holding clatters to the floor.

Without looking, I reach my foot out behind me and drag the gun towards me.

I hear Caleb's voice speaking again. _The green button._

I start to fall, and slam my hand into the keypad on my way down. A light turns on behind the green button.

I hear a beep, and a churning sound.

I feel something warm on my arm and abdomen. Blood.

I look at David slumped in his chair, blood oozing from the wounds in his arm and hand where I shot him.

And my_ mother _walking out from behind him.

She is dressed in the same clothes she wore the last time I saw her. Abnegation gray, stained with her blood, with bare arms to show her tattoo. There are still bullet holes in her shirt; through them I can see her wounded skin, red but no longer bleeding, like she's frozen in time. Her dull blond hair is tied back in a knot, but a few loose strands frame her face in gold.

I know she can't be alive, but I don't know if I'm seeing her now because I'm delirious from the blood loss or if the death serum has addled my thoughts or if she is here in some other way.

She kneels next to me and touches a cool hand to my cheek.

"Hello, Beatrice," she says, and she smiles.

"Am I done yet?" I say, and I'm not sure if I actually say it or if I just think it and she hears it.

"No, not yet," she says, her eyes bright with tears, "Tobias and Christina and Caleb need you. You're all they have left. But it's okay, I can wait to see you again, as can your father. I'm not going anywhere."

Then she disappears as my vision blurs and I hear more footsteps as everything goes dark.

**Chapter 51: Tobias**

Evelyn brushes the tears from her eyes with her thumb. We stand by the windows, shoulder to shoulder, watching the snow swirl past. Some of the flakes gather on the windowsill outside, piling at the corners.

The feeling has returned to my hands. As I stare out at the world, dusted in white, I feel like everything has begun again, and it will be better this time.

"I think I can get in touch with Marcus over the radio to negotiate a peace agreement," Evelyn says. "He'll be listening in; he'd be stupid not to."

"Before you do that, I made a promise I have to keep," I say. I touch Evelyn's shoulder. I expected to see strain at the edges of her smile, but I don't.

I feel a twinge of guilt. I didn't come here to ask her to lay down arms for me, to trade in everything she's worked for just to get me back. But then again, I didn't come here to give her any choice at all. I guess Tris was right- when you have to choose between two bad options, you pick the one that saves the people you love. I wouldn't have been saving Evelyn by giving her that serum. I would have been destroying her.

Peter sits with his back against the wall in the hallway. He looks up at me when I lean over him, his dark hair stuck to his forehead from the melted snow.

"Did you reset her?" he says.

"No," I say.

"Didn't think you would have the nerve."

"It's not about the nerve. You know what? Whatever." I shake my head and hold up the vial of memory serum. "Are you still set on this?"

He nods.

"You could just do the work, you know," I say. "You could make better decisions, make a better life."

"Yeah, I could," he says. "But I won't. We both know that."

I do know that. I know that change is difficult, and comes slowly, and that it is the work of many days strung together in a long line until the origin of them is forgotten. He is afraid that he will not be able to put in that work, that he will squander those days, and that they will leave him worse off than he is now. And I understand that feeling- I understand being afraid of yourself.

So I have him sit on one of the couches, and I ask him what he wants me to tell him about himself, after his memories disappear like smoke. He just shakes his head. Nothing. He wants to remember nothing.

Peter takes the vial with a shaking hand and twists off the cap. The liquid trembles inside it, almost spilling over the lip. He holds it under his nose to smell it.

"How much should I drink?" he says, and I think I hear his teeth chattering.

"I don't think it makes a difference," I say.

"Okay. Well…here goes." He lifts the vial up to the light like he is toasting me.

When he touches it to his mouth, I say, "Be brave."

Then he swallows.

And I watch Peter Disappear.

The air outside tastes like ice.

"Hey! Peter!" I shout, my breaths turning to vapor.

Peter stands by the doorway to Erudite headquarters, looking clueless. At the sound of his name- which I have told him at least ten times since he drank the serum- he raises his eyebrows, pointing to his chest. Matthew told us people would be disoriented for a while after drinking the memory serum, but I didn't think "disoriented" meant "stupid" until now.

I sigh. "Yes, that's you! For the eleventh time! Come on, let's go."

I thought that when I looked at him after he drank the serum, I would still see the initiate who shoved a butter knife into Edward's eye, and the boy who tried to kill my girlfriend, and all the other things he has done, stretching backward for as long as I've known him. But it's easier than I thought to see that he has no idea who he is anymore. His eyes still have that wide, innocent look, but this time, I believe it.

Evelyn and I walk side by side, with Peter trotting behind us. The snow has stopped falling now, but enough has collected on the ground that it squeaks under my shoes.

We walk to Millennium Park, where the mammoth bean sculpture reflects the moonlight, and then down a set of stairs. As we descend, Evelyn wraps her hand around my elbow to keep her balance, and we exchange a look. I wonder if she is as nervous as I am to face my father again. I wonder if she is nervous every time.

At the bottom of the steps is a pavilion with two glass blocks, each one at least three times as tall as I am, at either end. This is where we told Marcus and Johanna we would meet them- both parties armed, to be realistic but even.

They are already there. Johanna isn't holding a gun, but Marcus is, and he has it trained on Evelyn. I point the gun Evelyn gave me at him, just to be safe. I notice the planes of his skull, showing through his shaved hair, and the jagged path his crooked nose carves down his face.

"Tobias!" Johanna says. She wears a coat in Amity red, dusted with snowflakes. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to keep you all from killing each other," I say. "I'm surprised you're carrying a gun."

I nod to the bulge in her coat pocket, the unmistakable contours of a weapon.

"Sometimes you have to take difficult measures to ensure peace," Johanna says. "I believe you agree with that, as a principle."

"We're not here to chat," Marcus says, looking at Evelyn. "You said you wanted to talk about a treaty."

The past few weeks have taken something from him. I can see it in the turned-down corners of his mouth, in the purple skin under his eyes. I can see my own eyes set into his skull, and I think of my reflection in the fear landscape, how terrified I was, watching his skin spread over mine like a rash. I am still nervous that I will become him, even now, standing at odds with him with my mother at my side, like I always dreamed I would when I was a child.

But I don't think I'm still afraid.

"Yes," Evelyn says. "I have some terms for us both to agree to. I think you will find them fair. If you agree to them, I will step down and surrender whatever weapons I have that my people are not using for personal protection. I will leave the city and not return."

Marcus laughs. I'm not sure if it's a mocking laugh or a disbelieving one. He's equally capable of either sentiment, an arrogant and deeply suspicious man.

"Let her finish," Johanna d=says quietly, tucking her hands into her sleeves.

"In return," Evelyn says, "you will not attack or try to seize control of the city. You will allow those people who wish to leave and seek a new life elsewhere to do so. You will allow those who choose to stay to _vote_ on new leaders and a new social system. And most importantly, _you_, Marcus, will not be eligible to lead them.

It is the only purely selfish term of the peace agreement. She told me she couldn't stand the thought of Marcus duping more people into following him, and I didn't argue with her.

Johanna raises her eyebrows. I notice that she has pulled her hair back on both sides, to reveal the scar in its entirety. She looks better that way- stronger, when she is not hiding behind a curtain if hair, hiding who she is.

"No deal," Marcus says. "I am the leader of these people."

"Marcus," Johanna says.

He ignores her. "_You_ don't get to decide whether I lead them or not because you have a grudge against me, Evelyn!"

"Excuse me," Johanna says loudly. "Marcus, what she is offering is too good to be true- we get everything we want without all the violence! How can you possibly say no?"

"Because I am the rightful leader of these people!" Marcus says. "I am the leader of the Allegiant! I-"

"No, you are not," Johanna says calmly. "_I_ am the leader of the Allegiant. And you are going to agree to this treaty, or I am going to tell them that you had a chance to end this conflict without bloodshed if you sacrificed your pride, and you said no."

Marcus's passive mask is gone, revealing the malicious face beneath it. But even he can't argue with Johanna, whose perfect calm and perfect threat have mastered him. He shakes his head but doesn't argue again.

"I agree to your terms," Johanna says, and she holds out her hand, her footsteps squeaking in the snow.

Evelyn removes her glove fingertip by fingertip, reaches across the gap, and shakes.

"In the morning we should gather everyone together and tell them the new plan," Johanna says. "Can you guarantee a safe gathering?"

"I'll do my best," Evelyn says.

I check my watch. An hour has passes since Amar and Christina separated from us near the Hancock building, which means that the serum virus didn't work. Or maybe he doesn't. Either way, I have to do what I came here to do- I have to find Zeke and his mother and tell them what happened to Uriah.

"I should go," I say to Evelyn. "I have something else to take care of. But I'll pick you up from the city limits tomorrow afternoon?"

"That sounds good," Evelyn says, and she rubs my arm briskly with a gloved hand, like she used to when I came in from the cold as a child.

"You won't be back, I assume?" Johanna says to me. "You've found a life for yourself on the outside?"

"I have," I say. "Good luck in here. The people outside- they're going to try to shut the city down. You should be ready for them."

Johanna smiles. "I'm sure we can negotiate with them."

She offers me her hand, and I shake it. I feel Marcus's eyes on me like an oppressive weight threatening to crush me. I force myself to look at him.

"Good—bye," I say to him, and mean it.

Hana, Zeke's mother, has small feet that don't touch the ground when she sits in the easy chair in their living room. She wears a ragged black bathrobe and slippers, but the air she has, with her hands folded in her lab and her eyebrows raised, is so dignified that I feel like I am standing in front a world leader. I glance at Zeke, who is rubbing his face with his fists to wake up.

Amar and Christina found them, not among the other revolutionaries near the Hancock building, but in their family apartment in the Pire, above Dauntless headquarters. I only found them because Christina thought to leave Peter and me a note with their location on the useless truck. Peter is waiting in the new van Evelyn found for us to drive to the Bureau.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I don't know where to start."

"You might begin with the worst," Hana says. Like what exactly happened to my son."

"He was seriously injured during an attack," I say. "There was an explosion, and he was very close to it."

"Oh God," Zeke says, and he rocks back and forth like his body wants to be a child again, soothed by motion as a child is.

But Hana just bends her head, hiding her face from me.

Their living room smells like garlic and onion, maybe remnants from that night's dinner. I lean my shoulder into the white wall by the doorway. Hanging crookedly next to me is a picture of the family- Zeke as a toddler, Uriah as a baby, balancing on his mother's lap. Their father's face is pierced in several places, nose and ear and lip, but his wide, bright smile and dark complexion are more familiar to me because he passed them to both his sons.

"He has been in a coma since then," I say. "And…"

"And he isn't going to wake up," Hana says, her voice strained. "That is what you came to tell us, right?"

"Yes," I say. "I came to collect you so that you can make a decision on his behalf."

"A decision?" Zeke says. "You mean, to _unplug _him or not_?"_

_ "_Zeke," Hana says, and she shakes her head. He sinks back into the couch. The cushions seem to wrap around him.

"Of course we don't want to keep him alive that way," Hana says. "He would want to move on. But we would like to go see him."

I nod. "Of course. But there's something else I should say. The attack… it was a kind of uprising that involved some of the people from the place where we were staying. And I participated in it."

I stare at the crack in the floorboards right in front of me, at the dust that has gathered there over time, and wait for a reaction, any reaction. What greets me is only silence.

"I didn't do what you asked me," I say to Zeke. "I didn't watch out for him the way I should have. And I'm sorry."

I chance a look at him, and he is just sitting still, staring at the empty vase on the coffee table. It is painted with faded pink roses.

"I think we need some time with this," Hana says. She clears her throat, but it doesn't help her tremulous voice.

"I wish I could give it to you," I say. "But we're going back to the compound very soon, and you have to come with us."

"All right," Hana says. "If you can wait outside, we will be there in five minutes."

The ride back to the compound is slow and dark. I watch the moon disappear and reappear behind the clouds as we bump over the ground. When we reach the outer limits of the city, it begins to snow again, large, light flakes that swirl in front of headlights. I wonder if Tris is watching it sweep across the pavement and gather in piles by the airplanes. I wonder if she is living in a better world than the one I left, among people who no longer remember what it is to have pure genes.

Christina leans forward to whisper into my ear. "So you did it? It worked?"

I nod. In the rearview mirror I see her touch her face with both hands, grinning into her palms. I know how she feels: safe. We are all safe.

"Did you inoculate your family?" I say.

"Yep. We found them with the Allegiant, in the Hancock building," she says. "But the time for the reset has passed- it looks like Tris and Caleb stopped it."

Hana and Zeke murmur to each other on the way, marveling at the strange, dark world we move through. Amar gives the basic explanation as we go, looking back at them instead of the road far too often for my comfort. I try to ignore my surges of panic as he almost veers into streetlights or road barriers, and focus instead on the snow.

I have always hated the emptiness that winter brings, the blank landscape and the stark difference between sky and ground, the way it transforms trees into skeletons and the city into a wasteland. Maybe this winter I can be persuaded otherwise.

We drive past the fences and stop by the front doors, which are no longer manned by guards. We get out, and Zeke seizes his mother's hand to steady her as she shuffles through the snow. As we walk into the compound, I know for a fact that Caleb succeeded, because there is no one in sight. That can only mean that they have been reset, their memories forever altered.

"Where is everyone?" Amar says.

We walk through the abandoned security checkpoint without stopping. On the other side, I see Cara. The side of her face is badly bruised, and there's a bandage on her head, but that's not what concerns me. What concerns me is the troubled look on her face.

"What is it?" I say.

Cara shakes her head.

"Where's Tris?" I say.

"I'm sorry, Tobias."

"Sorry about what?" Christina says roughly. "Tell us what _happened_!"

"Tris went into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb," Cara says. "She survived the death serum, and set off the memory serum, but she got shot twice and lost consciousness. She lost a lot of blood."

I look at Cara. "Will she be okay?!" Cara looks at the ground.

"I don't know. She's in surgery now. They should tell us soon."

I don't know how long we wait. Only that Christina and I hold each other's hand to calm and steady ourselves. The wait was unbearable, not knowing if Tris was alive or not. Finally, the doctor, or whoever was operating on Tris, comes over to us.

"How is she?" Christina asks with the same worry I'm feeling written all over her face and in her voice.

"She'll survive," he says. A wave of relief washes over me. I didn't lose her.

"When can we see her?" I ask. The doctor looks at me and says, "You can see her now, but she won't wake up until tomorrow at the latest."

The doctor shows us where her room is. We walk inside, and the 3 of us, Cara, Christina, and I, walk up to the bed. Tris looks so peaceful and pale. Fragile and small. But yet, so strong that she withstood death serum and 2 bullet wounds. My girl.

**Chapter 52: Tris**

I remember seeing people, and being rushed somewhere. When I wake up, I'm in the infirmary again. I look to my right and see Tobias sitting in a chair, holding my hand tight, like I could die at any moment. Then I remember- shooting David, getting shot, seeing my mother. Tobias has his head down. "Tobias," I manage to say.

His head jerks up so fast he may have whiplash. He bolts out of his chair and closer to my side. His dark blue eyes full of relief at my awakening. He looks into my eyes. "Tris," his voice overcome with joy.

"What happened?" I ask Tobias. He looks at me, leans forward, and kisses me. This kiss is full of longing and passion. I melt into it, and into him. He pulls away and says, "Don't worry about it right now. I need to go tell Christina you're awake."

Tobias leaves and a short time later, Christina bursts in at full speed, coming to me and giving me a tight hug. I wince from the sharp pain in my abdomen. She pulls back and apologizes. Christina proceeds to scold me for scaring her like that and that the doctor says I should be up in a few days, in time to see Uriah one last time. I remember something.

"Christina, I- I saw my mom," she looks at me with concern. From the corner of my eye, I see Tobias has the same look. "And?" Christina pushes.

"She told me that I had to stay for you guys and- that she and my father could wait," I say, getting choked up. I feel a few tears run down my cheeks. Christina hugs me softly and Tobias holds my hand firm and strong.

A few days later, I'm walking better than I was the first time. Today is the day Uriah gets unplugged. I met with Christina and Tobias and we walk over to the room. No one talks, and no one makes a sound. It's somber as Evelyn joins us. She comes over to me and hugs me whispering, "Glad you made it, Tris." She pulls away and gives me a smile. Then turns to the glass which separates us from Uriah. Tobias got his mother back without the serum. And because of that, I will forget what she tried to do to the two of us. Uriah is unplugged and Hana and Zeke both shake with sobs. I feel my cheeks become wet with flowing tears again. Then David wheels in. I see Tobias tense up as he sees him. I go over to him and grip his arm to keep him from attacking him as he is wheeled by. Everyone, with some exceptions, has been reset here and won't remember anything.

**Epilogue: Tris. 4 years later**

Tobias and I have our own house where we've been living for years. Two years ago, our son, Will, was born. I never thought I would make it out of the Weapons Lab when David shot me. And yet, here Tobias and I are; married with a home, a son, and a daughter on the way. I'm four months along and the doctor says it's a girl. Just like the first time I was pregnant, and even when I'm not, Tobias is very protective and wants to do things for me, even though he knows I can do it on my own. Christina loves being a godmother and Evelyn makes an amazing grandmother. I still miss my parents but I still go on. Caleb is still building up my trust and, thanks to me talking to him, the trust of Tobias. We allow him to visit us and see his nephew. Things are great in the city without all the factions anymore. Ad life is better than I ever hoped and thought it could be.

**The End**


End file.
